“Constable, I need to know if you have any leads in Marcus’s disappearance.” MacVicar squinted.
“Marcus? The orphan boy who went missing?” said Will.
“Right. Right, we’re looking into it,” MacVicar said. “He wasn’t a friend of yours was he?”
“Yes, he was,” Will said. “And he’s been missing for months. Don’t you have anything yet?”
“Son, anything related to that case won’t go public before the investigation is concluded,” said MacVicar, his good cheer draining.
Will was instantly overcome with the tsunami of exasperation that so often accompanied his Outside interactions with adults. “This is bullshit …,” he murmured uncontrollably, crossing his arms, accidentally kicking the side of MacVicar’s steel desk.
“Look here,” MacVicar said, his face concrete, “Will, the only reason we’re talking right now is because I knew your family. My father worked with your grandfather Theodore and then your uncle Charlie down at those elevators, and I for one know you come from a good, hardworking family, so I’m cutting you some slack. But as I said: these particulars are confidential. And they’re going to remain that way, am I clear?”
Will sneered and turned his head to the window. He hated how in books children were always undiscovered geniuses or princes who inherited rolling green estates at the end. The Outside had laid bare his mother’s great lie: Will wasn’t even in the neighborhood of genius, and a soaring inventory of questions stonewalled his understanding. Just once Will wanted Outside things to go as smoothly as they always had Inside. This idea closed Will’s throat, and he unleashed a low, flabby sob.
The constable sighed and pushed forward a box of tissue. “Can I get you anything, son?” he said.
Will shook his head, unlatching a few more tears that dappled his shirt.
MacVicar rose and poured himself a cup of coffee from the machine on his filing cabinet.
“Can I have one of those?” Will said, sniffing.
The constable paused, cocked his head. Then shrugged. “How do you take it?”
“Pardon?” said Will.
“Black?”
Will nodded, even though he knew coffee was actually dark brown. His mother only drank black tea because coffee “rattled her cage.”
“Look, Will, I know things haven’t been the smoothest for you and your family,” said MacVicar, handing the cup to Will. “How is your mother? She getting out?”
“She’s good,” Will lied, remembering Jonah’s warning about Social Services. “We go to the movies every week and on long walks and stuff.”
“Good, good, Will,” said MacVicar, before they took matching slugs of coffee. Will nearly gagged—the taste was cheap hot chocolate mixed with the moldy soil of a neglected houseplant.
“And I know how tragedies can unsettle a community,” said MacVicar, easing back into his chair. “I’m sure your mother must have told you about your uncle’s accident and what a blow that was to everyone in Thunder Bay. I was there that morning. A terrible thing to witness. It makes a kind of sense her being leery of things and all.”
“You were there when my uncle’s heart gave out?” Will said.
“His heart?” said MacVicar. “That’s an interesting way to put it, son. But I don’t blame her.”
“For what?” said Will.
“You’ll have to ask your mother that question, Will. Listen, my point is, nowadays we’ve got boys like Marcus going missing monthly. Mostly they scarf Valiums or oxycodone before getting gunned on their dad’s hooch or their sister’s hair spray and then go winter swimming in the lake is my experience. So pardon me if our top investigative priority isn’t a lazy delinquent whose natural proclivity is for getting himself lost.”
“Marcus wasn’t lazy,” Will said irritatedly. “He built a cabin. Himself.”
“That shack near the highway we found?” said MacVicar. “On Crown land. Which I shouldn’t have to point out is stealing.”
“He was hiding,” Will said.
“From the truant officer,” scoffed MacVicar.
“From the Butler,” said Will, with either his anger or the coffee loosening his tongue. “It was his wolf who bit me. And he’s a bootlegger,” Will added. “I have proof. And I think he kidnapped Marcus.”
MacVicar sighed deeply. “So there’s the big fat chunk of information that brought you down here, huh?” He walked over to the window and looked out at the water like the captain of a ship. “Son, there’re some things about Thunder Bay I don’t expect you to understand yet. It’s different than it was in your mother’s day. At that time, things made sense here. We put the bad guys in jail and sent the good guys to work. But once the grain stopped coming on those rails and went east to China, things took a turn. Now we’ve got the highest crime rate on the Lakes, outside Chicago. The only grain people’re interested in is the fermented kind. The pourable version. The kind that helps you forget the better times and hunker down into the new. Will, just because you survived that wolf bite don’t mean you’ll come through whatever else this city can muster up for you. People here aren’t in the habit of minding manners, if you go poking into their affairs.”
“People like the Butler?” said Will. “That’s what he does, right? Makes grain alcohol? And now Neverclear? And you already know this, but you don’t even stop him?” Only halfway through his coffee, Will already noticed his jaw trembling and thoughts piling in his head, like a thousand people waiting to pass through a narrow exit, and his mouth felt more comfortable moving than at rest. No wonder everyone Outside drinks it, he thought, coffee makes you brave.
“It may not be pretty,” said MacVicar, “but George Butler keeps order down there among all those hobos and miscreants. Man hops off a train or a lakeboat, perpetrates something wicked, hops right back on. How do I trace that? Then there’s our Indian troubles to complicate things, with more and more coming down from the reserves for opportunities we can’t even offer our own sons anymore. So as it stands, George Butler performs a vital function here. Keeps a lid on things. You don’t know this yet, but there is nothing more dangerous than a person with nothing to do.”
“If you won’t find Marcus, then I will,” Will said defiantly. “For starters, I want to make a formal request for a list of all escaped mental patients within a hundred-mile radius.”
“And what are you going to do with that?” asked MacVicar.
“Investigate.”
He let out a long breath. “Careful, Will. I suspect the first name on that list would be yours.” Will threw himself to his feet and started off. “Look,” MacVicar said. “For years I’ve turned a blind eye to what’s been going on over at your place, the irregularity of it, so don’t try my patience. But what worries me most is how boys, even good boys like yourself, can end up in the same places as our society’s less exemplary members.”
“Kinda like my being here?” Will said.
“You know why that is?” MacVicar said, ignoring Will’s jab. “Because kids and bad people have one thing in common: they both prefer to be alone.” With that, MacVicar stood and opened his door. “It’s been a hoot, Will,” he said, “but I have an appointment at two.”
Will looked at the wall clock, which was also a stuffed walleye. “But it’s not even ten?”
The constable took a sip and nodded as he swallowed.
“Oh, and Will,” the constable called out across the reception area. “What about your safety equipment?”